The Snarl is a creature born of deific foolishness which, if unleashed, would end existence as we know it.
When the world was young, it was made up of threads of possible realities. The Gods arrived in their Pantheons (North, East, South and West), intent on creating a world of worshipers. The pantheons, unfortunately, could not agree on the properties of this world. There were arguments, and when this occurred the Gods would simply pull on the threads of reality. The tangled threads eventually gave way to the Snarl.
When the Snarl attacked it wiped out the entire Eastern Pantheon (which explains why Durkon Thundershield and others have never heard of them). The Snarl then proceeded to undo creation by tearing apart the world, which it succeeded in doing after exactly 27 minutes.
The Gods retreated to their Celestial Realms, where they hatched a plan: when the Snarl tore the world apart the threads that created the world, they were now usable to create a new world. This time, each of the gods made their additions to the world a single thread at a time, passing the task between them in sequence, accepting the others' creations. They created the new world in exactly the same dimensional space as the Snarl, shunting it into a demiplane from which it could not destroy the world.
Aeons later, five rifts appeared in the Snarl's prison. Six PCs embarked on an epic campaign to seal them and save the world. Though the party was ultimately successful, history repeated itself as they began to argue over the best method to safeguard the rifts from future abuses. A similar agreement was reached, by which the five surviving PCs would each safeguard the gate nearest to their homelands in their own way and never interfere with the others' under any circumstances:
- Dorukan, a powerful human wizard, bound his gate in the The Redmountain Hills with complex sigils that could only be operated by someone "pure of heart". He was killed by the lich Xykon, who planned to use the Gate, but the mountain was destroyed in an explosion set off by Elan.
- Lirian, an elven druid, built her Gate in a forest, where she enlisted the aid of forest guardians. She vanished when her Gate was accidentally destroyed in a forest fire by Redcloak.
- Girard Draketooth, an illusionist and tracker, built his Gate in the Western Desert, protecting it by countless illusions to reflect his belief in the power of deception.
- Serini Toormuck, a halfling rogue, built her Gate as a tomb for her deceased loved one, the Dwarf Barbarian Kraagor. It contains some of the strongest monsters in the world, to reflect Kraagor's belief in the power of physical might.
- Soon Kim, a paladin from Azure City, chose to build an immense fortress around the single sapphire Lirian and Dorukan used to seal the Gate in the sky over his city. He then created a league of paladins known as the Sapphire Guard to protect it, signifying his belief in the power of honor, truth and loyalty. The Sapphire was destroyed by Miko Miyazaki (who was killed in the resulting explosion) during the Battle of Azure City.